She feebly attempted to open hay bales and sort flakes into wheelbarrows but even that was beyond her. Shannon took over with a sound of disgust when she saw Lori trying to balance the wheelbarrow handle on her cast and pushed her out of the way.
“Let me do it – you’re going to break it again if you keep messing around,” she said good-naturedly.
Lori watched the petite horsewoman make the rounds efficiently, tossing the flakes with a practiced ease over the stall doors.
“I hate to ask, but we’ll have to get the stallion from the outdoor arena to the indoor and give him some flakes, too. He hasn’t been able to graze all afternoon.”
“No problem and don’t ‘hate to ask,’ Lori – you’d do the same for me if the tables were turned.”
When they got into the house, Mark was there, waiting to take Shannon home. The three of them debated for awhile, however, what the best course of action was in light of Lori’s injury.
“Lori, I just saw how you struggled with everything,” Shannon pointed out. “There’s no way on earth you’re going to be able to turn those horses out tomorrow on your own. You’re not feeling bad now, but remember that you’ve still got freezing in your hand and you’re loaded up on painkillers. Tomorrow is going to be a different story.”
“Shannon, you’ve got your own horses to take care of. I’ll manage somehow. I will,” she added when Shannon shot her a highly-doubtful look.
Mark stepped in at that point and offered to bring Shannon back early the following morning as a compromise. The two were just about to start the debate on that suggestion when he stopped them by pointing at Lori’s phone. “Before we start the second round, were you expecting a call? That thing is flashing like a Christmas tree.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Lori said, walking over to the phone. “My parents usually call tomorrow night and –” She stopped abruptly, remembering. “Oh, my gosh – I was supposed to call Noel back. He’ll be wondering where I am.”
She reached for the phone, accessed her voicemail and listened with regret as the series of phone messages from Noel began with an optimistic query and progressed to out-and-out demands for her to call him immediately and let him know she was okay. By the end, he was almost as anxious as she usually was – she could hear the mix of worry and fear in his voice – and she disconnected with disappointment in herself.
She was just beginning to dial Jeret’s number when Shannon saw the headlights coming up the driveway.
“I think you can hang up,” she said, almost sounding smug. “Somebody’s here.”
When Noel’s truck pulled into view from the porch lights, Lori set down the phone. She met him before he even got off the driveway.
**********
He wanted desperately to crush her to him, but he had seen the cast and wasn’t sure if she was injured elsewhere. Instead, he settled for a deep, long hug, drinking in the scent of her as he held her, confirming with his innate sixth sense that she was still whole.
“Are you okay?” he whispered anyway, still holding her against him in protection from unseen forces.
He felt her nod against his hair and he squeezed her lightly before letting go and taking a step back to look her over.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she was saying. “I got kicked by one of the horses and my hand was hurting pretty badly – I thought I’d dislocated my finger and went to the hospital to have them put it back into place. But it turned out to be a broken hand and I was there longer than I thought and then I had to wait for Shannon to come get me and when we got here we had to get the horses in and fed and...”
She broke off with a shy smile, realizing that she was running away at the mouth. He smiled back at her, so terribly relieved that she was okay. He wanted to pull her to him and plant a kiss right between those amazing grey-green eyes, but instead he simply reached out a hand and cupped her left elbow in sympathy.
“You had me worried,” he said softly, aware that Shannon and Mark were coming out to the porch. “And yes, I’m aware of the irony of that after all I’ve told you about not being worried of things.”
She smiled at him and winked. “Will you come into the house, now that you’re here?”
“Yes,” he answered with absolute certainty.
He greeted Shannon and Mark with handshakes and they went back inside to discuss next moves.
“I’ll stay with her,” he blurted immediately when he heard the argument about whether Lori could manage on her own. It seemed like an easy solution and there was no way he was leaving her yet – not after the scare he’d just been through.
“That settles it then,” Shannon said with a knowing smile as she and Mark stood up. “We should get going before it gets too late...and anyway, she needs to eat,” Shannon said to Noel, jerking a head in Lori’s direction. “She told me she had a sandwich about six hours ago, so fix her something, will you, Noel?”
“Of course,” he answered at the same time Lori began her protest.
“I’m not an invalid!” she objected.
“Nobody said you were, Lori,” Shannon interjected. “But take the help when it’s offered to you, eh?”
Noel watched Lori fume for a few seconds more, but could see the dark shadows forming under her eyes and knew she was about done in for the day. The fight was going out of her.
Shannon saw it, too, and walked over to give her friend a hug. “Feel better, my dear,” she said as she pulled back. “And when Noel has to leave – or if you just need my help, call me,” she demanded.
“Alright, alright,” Lori conceded as she walked them to the door.
When they’d left, Noel placed his hands lightly on Lori’s shoulders from behind and steered her towards the couch, the kittens running around them like miniature cyclones.
“How about a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup?” he asked as he lightly pushed her down on the couch.
The kittens immediately bounded into her lap; he made note of it.
Lori nodded as she sank into the cushions. “Grilled cheese sounds good, but there’s some frozen fries in the freezer – you can make those up instead of soup.”
He turned and made his way back to the kitchen, but heard her snort then giggle from the dim lighting of the living room. “Frozen fries in the freezer,” she murmured, laughing again. “That’s funny to say.”
He was filled with an unutterable tenderness at that moment and he smiled as he opened the refrigerator. “You’re very tired,” he called out to her.
“Yes,” she agreed.
Chapter 16
He was sleeping lightly on the futon in the guest bedroom, so was instantly awake when he heard her making her way to his room in the dark.
“Noel?” she called softly from the doorway.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Did I wake you? I’m sorry if I did.”
“You didn’t,” he reassured her. “Do you want to come in?”
“I can’t sleep,” she answered, coming into the room.
He couldn’t see more than a dim silhouette of her by the starlight from the window. She was wearing a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a tank top, the curves of her body just visible against the blackness of the room behind her.
“Was it my cooking?” he asked in jest.
She laughed and shook her head, settling down in the office chair next to him. “No, silly. It’s my hand.”
“Mmm. Hurting a lot?”
“No, that’s the thing. It doesn’t hurt...but I’m going snaky with this thing in a cast. I feel trapped. Now I know why animals gnaw off their legs when they get caught in traps. I want it off.”
“Mmm,” he said again, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. “Bring it here?” he asked in invitation.
She extended the heavy, cumbersome arm and he reached out, sliding his way up the cast to the flesh above her elbow. He lightly settled his hands on her skin an
d began to gently massage the arm.
“It burns,” she continued, not resisting his touch. “I think I’m going to go crazy with how...prickly...it is.”
“You won’t go crazy,” he assured her, continuing his kneading of her skin. It was soft and smooth and he wanted badly to lean over and run his lips along it. But of course, that would be ridiculous – and unwelcome – so he carried on with what was allowed.
“Why did they give you a plaster cast?” he asked as he went higher towards her shoulder, then back down. “Don’t they usually use fibreglass?”
She exhaled softly in relief and shook her head at his question. “I don’t know, but I do have to go back in a couple of days to see a bone specialist so I’ll ask.”
He continued to rub her arm above the elbow in silence, each of them listening to the other breathe in the dark.
“The kittens keep lying on top of me, too,” she said after awhile. “That’s unusual for them. They usually lie next to me on the bed, but they want to be on the cast which adds to the weight. And then I’m afraid of disturbing them so I hold perfectly still.”
“That can’t be at all comfortable,” he agreed.
“It’s not,” she said, with a note of strain creeping into her voice. “I’m exhausted,” she added and suddenly her arm was shaking in his hands.
He realized she was crying silently in the dark and he left off with his massage. Instead he stood up and pulled her up to a standing position, too, gathering her in for a hug. She couldn’t lift her arm properly to return the embrace and he heard her growl in frustration.
“I want this off,” she snarled. “Seriously – if I grab one of Cody’s saws, will you cut it off?”
“Lori, don’t be foolish,” he chided her, wrapping an arm around her waist and gently leading her back to her bedroom.
He turned on one of the bedside lamps when they got back to the room and lightly pressed her back into a sitting position on her own bed, where she would be more comfortable. In the dim light of the room, he could see how tired she was – the black circles were more pronounced now under her eyes and numerous strands of her silver-and-black hair were flying around her face, pulled out of the ponytail she had clumsily made before bed.
“Did your doctor give you some painkillers?” he asked. “I’ll go fetch them for you.”
“Yes, they’re on the table downstairs.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”
He returned to find her curled up in the fetal position on the bed, her encased arm and hand stuck out awkwardly next to her, the kittens lying gracelessly across the cast. He stopped abruptly in the doorway at the sight but Lori must have heard him come back.
“Do you see what I mean?” she asked, looking up at him. “Isn’t that eerie?”
He handed her the pills and water and she took them clumsily, the kittens still wrapped around her limb.
“Are they purring?” he asked in disbelief.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Unnerving, isn’t it?”
Noel snorted in answer. “Very.”
He sat down next to her on the bed and she made a half-hearted attempt to slide closer to him. They sat quietly for a few minutes like that, Noel listening to the steady thrum of the kittens, trying to figure out what it might mean.
“I can’t believe how much it burns,” Lori murmured, drifting towards sleep.
He wrapped an arm around her and resumed his gentle massage of the exposed skin. He continued for awhile until he felt her relax completely into the heavy-bodied sleep of the exhausted. He stilled his hand but rolled slightly towards her, subconsciously shielding her.
Then finally sleep took them both, the kittens continuing their gentle purring as a serenade.
**********
Noel woke the next morning when Lori rolled over and punched him unknowingly in the gut with her cast. He came to with a soft “oof” and started up from the bed. When he realized where he was, though, he sank back onto the mattress and looked down at her sleeping form. She was now curled around him, the cast extended across his chest, and she was still sleeping deeply.
He knew that she had a built-in alarm clock after years of getting up to care for horses, but checked to see what time it was, just in case. 5:30 a.m. It was still dark outside, but they had both fallen asleep without turning off the bedside lamp and its diffused light warmed the atmosphere in the room. Noel knew Lori usually got up around 6:00 to feed the horses, so they had time yet; he laid back down and enjoyed the feel of her against him.
The kittens had been disturbed by her sudden turning, but now came back to the cast – even crawling up on Noel’s chest to be near to Lori’s injury once more. Leia curled herself around Lori’s hand and Luke draped himself across her wrist and again they started purring.
Noel watched in fascination as they went to work. When he could get up, he was definitely going to record these strange events in his journal – this was clearly out of the ordinary. He had no idea what it all meant but he was determined to start doing some research.
Lori snuffled softly in her sleep and rubbed her face against his side. Every nerve in his body sprang awake at her touch and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He loved her. He knew it without a shadow of doubt, even though he had only known her a short while. His frantic drive from Toronto in the dark last night had shown him that. But he couldn’t act on it – that was the problem. She still had so much healing to do, both emotionally and now physically, that his revelations would only confuse things. He knew he had to keep his feelings to himself for the present, but it was bloody difficult when she felt so good pressed up against him.
As cautiously as a kitten approaching a plastic bag, he extended a hand and lightly stroked her dramatic, unusual hair. Even though he had come to expect the changes in it, he had been shocked to see more silver since the last time he had seen her. There was clearly a pattern beginning to emerge – swirls of black and grey were speckling together that would soon look exactly like a snow leopard’s pelt. Despite the unnerving oddity of it, Noel still wanted to bury his hands in its thickness and feel the strands slide through his fingers. Again he held back, though, settling for a feather-light skimming of her scalp.
Six o’clock came and went and when Lori’s inner clock didn’t wake her, Noel left the kittens to their thunderous purring and slid out of the bed. She protested his leaving with an unconscious murmur and he quickly grabbed the pillow he’d been lying on and slid it into place against her. She wrapped herself around it with alacrity and subsided into dreams once more.
Noel looked down at her for a few moments more and then impulsively bent over and kissed her softly at the temple. She made a breathy sound of acknowledgement but didn’t wake so he turned off her lamp and left the room.
He had watched Lori feed the horses in the morning enough times that he felt he could probably handle it alone. He headed to the barn and was greeted by Bear at the entrance.
“Hello, old friend,” he called softly in the early dawn’s light and Bear replied with a huge yawn, a back-twisting stretch and a quick meow.
He fed the barn cat and the horses within the stable, then threw a few more flakes of hay into a wheelbarrow and took them to the indoor arena where the stud-colt was housed. After checking the water situation for all the animals, he came back into the house and listened quietly at the door for several seconds.
There was no sound from upstairs, though, and he was relieved that Lori seemed to be getting the sleep her body obviously needed. He moved quietly to the kitchen, made himself a tea and a couple slices of toast with jam then settled in front of Lori’s laptop computer in the living room and began a search.
He typed in “purr, broken bone” and was astounded by what came up almost immediately on several websites.
“The optimal frequency for bone stimulation is 50 hertz,” he read in amazement. “The dominant and fundamental frequency for three spec
ies of cats' purrs is exactly 25 to 50 hertz: the best frequencies for bone growth and fracture healing.
“The cat's purr falls well within the 20 — 50 hertz anabolic range, and extends up to 140 hertz. All members of the cat family except cheetahs have a dominant or strong harmonic at 50 hertz. The harmonics of three cat species fall exactly on, or within, 2 points of 120 hertz, a frequency which has been found to repair tendons.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Noel muttered, and then scrolled down the page.
“The type of frequencies that are found in the cat's purr are good for healing muscle, tendon, and ligament injuries, as well as for muscle strengthening and toning,” he read next. “They are good for any type of joint injury, wound healing, reduction of infection and swelling, pain relief, and relief of chronic pulmonary disease.
“Authors of the veterinarians' surgery manual say that what it basically comes down to is that, compared to other animals, cats simply don't get chronic pulmonary disease, muscle and tendon injuries, bone diseases, and a lot of other things that dogs get. The purr seems to be a constant strengthener and toner for the muscles.”
Noel went back and looked at more articles, feeling the hair stand up on the back of his neck when he read the next passage about broken bones.
“Throughout history, the cat has been the most worshipped and the most persecuted domestic animal. Perhaps the most popular cat saying is that they have ‘nine lives.’ This type of old wives' tale usually has a grain of truth behind it, especially since there is also an old veterinary school adage that states ‘If you put a cat and a sack of broken bones in the same room the bones will heal.’”
Noel snorted at that, but kept reading.
“Most veterinary orthopaedic surgeons have observed how relatively easy it is to mend broken cat bones, as compared with dogs. 132 cats were recently studied after they survived falls from high-rise apartment buildings – the record fall was from 45 storeys. Ninety percent of them survived even though some had severe injuries.”
Noel let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and shook his head. He took a long drink of his hot tea then continued reading.
“There is also literature that suggests that domestic cats are in general less prone to postoperative complications following elective surgeries,” the article went on. “Cats do not have near the prevalence of orthopaedic disease or ligament and muscle traumas as dogs have, and non-union of fractures in cats is rare. Researchers believe that self-healing is the survival mechanism behind the purr. There is extensive documentation that suggests that low frequencies, at low intensity, are therapeutic. These frequencies can aid bone growth, fracture healing, and pain relief...”